Gleanings of the Week Ending July 13, 2024

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Pair of Resting Cuckoo Bees Wins the Royal Entomological Society’s Insect Photo Competition – Wonderful images of insects. My favorite is the Wavy-lined Emerald Moth (“A forest gem”).

The Role of Commons in Our Future Resilience - The climate and biodiversity crises will make collective land and water resources the source of future cooperation and conflict. If our commons aren’t governed well, we can have a “future of global violence.” Balancing the needs of local communities and conservation and restoration will require strong relationships between governments and the people who depend on commons for their livelihoods and culture.

Study shows how liver damage from stress and aging might be reversible – The study showed that aging exacerbates non-alcoholic liver disease by creating ferroptic stress, and by reducing this impact, we can reverse the damage.

Extreme Heat’s Far-Reaching Impacts - In addition to the expected impacts — dehydration, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke — heat can also endanger pregnant women, impact sleep patterns, and increase irritability, depression, and suicide rates. Heat is also associated with higher rates of violence and aggression, including intimate partner violence and gun violence.

The chemistry of Polaroid photography – The technology behind taking a picture and printing it instantly.

Cooling Solutions for Cities That Lower Surface & Air Temperatures – Some productive and appealing ways to cool urban heat centers.

Funny Early Entries of the 2024 Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards – Images that will make you smile!

Climate change and sea level rise pose an acute challenge for cities with combined sewer systems - Some 40 million people currently live in areas served by combined sewer systems (in places like Philadelphia, New York, and Boston) that are at increasing risk of being inundated by untreated sewage during floods.

Ancient Egyptian Scribes Were Worked to the Bone - Scribes sat in cross-legged or kneeling positions for long periods of time, hunched over paper and ink. Such activity was bound to overload the jaw, neck and shoulder regions. 30 skeletons of scribes from a northern Egyptian cemetery were examined. Much of the damage was found on the skeleton’s right sides, with the right knee being an especially common point of osteoarthritis, possibly because scribes repeatedly squatted on their right legs, the researchers theorize. And ancient Egyptian iconography commonly depicts scribes writing with their right hands. The posture impacted scribes’ backs.

Pronghorn Place: Preserve Protects Wildlife Migration Route – About the Flat Ranch Preserve on the outskirts of Yellowstone National Park…what has been learned about the Pronghorns migrating through. It reminded me of the pronghorns I saw at Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (New Mexico) in 2018.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 25, 2023

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

The ancient diseases that plagued dinosaurs – Interdisciplinary teams are re-looking at dinosaur bones and comparing anomalies to diseases visible in modern bones….finding examples of dinosaurs with malignant bone cancer, septic arthritis, and airsacculitis. And it seems that there is a lot more to discover with the technologies now available to look at the fossils more closely and collaborating with vets (particularly vets that work with birds and reptiles).

A worthless life and the worthy death: euthanasia through the ages – The post is written from an Australian perspective and about Caitlin Mahar’s book: The Good Death Through Time. The topic is a thought provoking one….made more interesting with an overlay of history.  I wondered how much the growth of medical interventions has changed the way we envision ‘worthy death’ or is the phrase ‘death with dignity’ a better description now.

Residential solar advantages – 5 top benefits – This is something my husband and I plan to do…solar-plus-storage is our 1st choice. Residential solar also has advantages beyond the home itself: it can power your transportation home too!

Fructose could drive Alzheimer’s disease – More research is needed…but it is interesting that the fructose consumption has gone up in the US (in 1977-1978 it was 37 g/day….in a 2008 study, it was 54.7 g/day). Maybe reducing the risk for Alzheimer’s is another reason to eliminate ultra-processed foods that typically contain a lot of fructose from our diet.

High-paying jobs that don't need a college degree? Thousands of them are sitting empty – Making a career in the trades….and there is a lot of work available.

Why methane surged in 2020 – Interesting findings and how they were developed. The two main reasons: 1) heightened emissions from wetlands because of unusually high temperatures and rainfall and 2) decline in NOx due to COVID-19 lockdowns which broke the chemical reaction in the atmosphere that produces hydroxyl (OH) that serves to remove methane from the atmosphere.

Why aren’t energy flows diagrams used more to inform decarbonization? – Yes! These are easier to understand than a lot of other graphics. The ‘heating the UK with heat pumps or green hydrogen’ diagram caused a ‘learned something new’ moment for me!

Will we ever be able to predict earthquakes? – The answer might be ‘no’ – but there are still a lot of people trying. We can’t rely on predicting them to reduce the destruction in infrastructure and lives. Enforced building codes would reduce destruction and save lives since we already know the areas of high risk for earthquakes. It will be interesting to see an analysis of what the damage from the recent Turkey/Syria earthquake would have been if building codes would have been enforced (the ones that Turkey evidently instituted after the previous earthquake…and also if the ‘best in world’ standards has been enforced).

15th-Century Spices Identified in Royal Shipwreck – Analysis of plants from a 1495 shipwreck in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden: nutmeg, cloves, mustard, dill, saffron, ginger, peppercorns, almonds, blackberries, raspberries, grapes and flax. The findings provide insight on cuisine and trade of the era.

Did you know pronghorns shed their horns? – No…but it a good piece of trivia. I remember seeing pronghorns in New Mexico – racing our vehicle during a guided tour of Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 8, 2020

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Abstract Aerial Photos of Iceland's Rivers Look Like Watercolor Paintings – A little art photography to start out the gleanings this week.

Tomb Containing Three Generations of Warrior Women Unearthed in Russia | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Evidently research is revealing that warrior women were the norm, not the exception, in Scythian culture. Scythians lived in small tribes, wore trousers (practical since they were on horseback much of the time) and fought with bows and arrows.

Protecting the Sonoran Pronghorn from Extinction – It’s complicated….lots of agencies involved….an international border that is becoming a migration barrier.

Is Notre-Dame Too Fragile to Be Saved? | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Removing the scaffolding that was melted by the fire is evidently going to be a big challenge.

Whooping cough evolving into a superbug -- ScienceDaily – The research was done in Australia…but it probably applies to the US as well. Bottom line: we need to be developing an improved whooping cough vaccine.

One Reason Colorado Playgrounds Are Looking Way More ‘Natural’ | Colorado Public Radio – I like the new types of playgrounds….more than swing sets and slides…bringing in some natural elements.

White Sands National Monument Redesignated As A "National Park" – A beautiful and unique place. I’ve only been there once…but it was very memorable. The biggest surprise for me was that even on a hot day in June, the sand was not hot! Being white really does reflect the heat up and away.

2019 Year In Review: Some Great Photo Tips – So many beautiful places to photograph….take some time in a natural place (National Parks are awesome…but there are other places that are great too).

Striking Portraits of Rare and Endangered Birds by Tim Flach – I tend to like bird pictures from the wild…but these are amazing portraits. Virginia Cardinal – I was surprised to see it in this grouping…as far as I know they are not different than the Northern Cardinal. Cornell’s Allaboutbirds doesn’t have a listing for them.

Mealworms safely consume toxic additive-containing plastic -- ScienceDaily – Not an answer to the plastic problem…more like basic research that could be incorporated into a partial solution. The biggest gain comes from dramatically reducing single use plastics.

Festival of the Cranes – part 4

Our first day at the Festival ended with a program about owls and then going out into the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge to look for owls along the wildlife loop. Our guides managed to help us see three species: western screech owl, great horned owl, and barn owl. I didn’t take any pictures and am waiting on my husband to process his to (maybe) write a post about the experience. The barn owls in flight over the field (beside the road where we were standing) were the high point of the evening.

I was glad our field trip for the next day was not an early morning. We got to Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in plenty of time for our 8AM start. There were screwbean mesquites growing near the entrance of the visitor center. For some reason, I had not noticed this type of mesquite before; the seeds are quite different from the mesquites I grew up with in Texas!

The field trip was to a part of the refuge not open to the public. It turns out that the majority of Sevilleta is used for research. There is no wild life loop road and the part we would see during the field trip is not directly connected to the parcel that has the visitor center and refuge headquarters. The field trip group headed out in three refuge vehicles – down a highway and across some private land. As soon as we went through the gate to the refuge land the increase in vegetation was obvious. It’s still a dry place.

Horned larks flew up along the road as our vehicles proceeded down the road. There was a solanum species with their tiny fruits.

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Someone with sharp eyes spotted oryx (gemsbok) in the distance. They were imported from Africa to White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico and their numbers have been growing in New Mexico (they escaped the missile range). Their numbers seem to be stable on the refuge.

We stopped to hike through a small canyon where sandstone that contains underground water abuts harder rock – forcing water to the surface – until the harder rock ends and the water goes underground again. I managed an identification-level picture of a Townsend’s Solitaire. There was a thin layer of ice on the water. The water was trickling through underneath.

Along the road, we stopped for birds. Most of the time I just got to see them through binoculars. I managed to get a picture of the Mountain Bluebirds

And several of a Loggerhead Shrike – one with prey. Later in the field trip as we drove along the barbed wire fence, we saw desiccated insects pinned to the barbs by shrikes.

A little further along there was a Canyon Towhee in the top of a cholla.

I couldn’t resist photographing the cholla!

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A herd of pronghorn were just white rumps running away at first but then they turned and raced the vehicles. They would turn and cross the road in front of the caravan – forcing it to slow or stop until they crossed. Then they would run beside us on that side of the road before they crossed again. It seemed to be a game and only the pronghorn knew the rules. We all wondered whether it was the youngest in the group that decided to run…the dominant male was usually close to the back of the group!

We stopped at another canyon for another hike. It was drier although during the monsoons there would be water flowing.

The refuge staff has converted older style drinkers which worked for deer to shallow pools to work for other animals as well. The water pump is powered by a solar panel and there is a camera to document visitors.

We returned to the visitor center a little before 4. It was the only day of the festival that I got my 12,000 steps!